killed Jimmy. It seems to me that the two events must be related.”
“I agree,” Longarm said. “And it seems to me that whoever is behind all this must believe that there is still a lot of Spanish gold out here yet to be found.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because,” Longarm replied, “what other reason would they have for killing Eli after I talked to him about Jimmy?”
“To keep from being identified?”
“No,” Longarm said, “I didn’t know Eli at all, but you did and I’m sure you agree that the man would have identified Jimmy’s killers if he’d known their identities.”
“You’re right,” Dan said, nodding his head. “See, you have the mind for this sort of thing. I don’t.”
“Did Jimmy have any relatives?” Longarm asked.
“No. He never married. Always been a loner. I think that Eli, myself, and you must have been the only ones that he really trusted. You see, if a man stays out here in this desert by himself for too long, he starts to talk out loud, at first to his burro, if he has one, then to himself.”
“is that a fact?”
“It is,” Dan insisted. “I have carried on day-long conversations with myself and my burro. The three of us have argued and even almost come to blows a time or two. Now, I also talk to the Lord a lot, but someone like Eli or Jimmy, they don’t, and so they get to hearing strange voices.”
“You mean, in their heads?”
“That’s right,” Dan replied. “Sometimes the voices are friendly, but sometimes not. And after a long while, prospectors just sort of go a little crazy. I’m sure you’ve seen them wandering around frontier mining towns, muttering things to themselves. Arguing back and forth. It’s pretty common.”
“I doubt that Jimmy was crazy,” Longarm said. “He’d been a prospector a long, long time when I met him and he wasn’t crazy.”
“He changed some after he found those Spanish coins and started our big Wickenburg gold rush. People were always trying to get him drunk so he’d tell them where he found those coins. And they followed him everywhere. Jimmy got to where he wouldn’t hardly come into Wickenburg anymore.”
“I see.” Longarm squinted into the heat waves and watched a dust devil dance across the desert floor. This was, he knew, bad country to get into without a guide who knew the watering holes.
They rode all that day and made a dry camp at sundown. Dan had bought some big skin bags and filled them with water, but their two thirsty horses could have drunk it all and lots more. There was also fifty pounds of oats tied to the back of each saddle, so the horses had plenty to eat.
“If we get an early start,” Dan said, “we’ll arrive at that deep spring by mid-morning.”
“The one where you found gold?”
“That’s right. From there, we go on a few miles farther and then I’ll show you about where I think that Jimmy discovered those Spanish coins. Would have been a lot better off never to have found them, don’t you agree?”
“Yes,” Longarm said, “I do.”
That evening, they ate well because the preacher had paid someone to pack them a fine supper with beef, potatoes, and even a couple of thick slabs of apple pie. Longarm and Dan talked only a short while and then they collapsed on their blankets and went right to sleep.
When Longarm awoke the next morning, Dan was frying salt pork and making biscuits. He had even brewed a pot of coffee and looked happy and content. Dan gave Longarm a warm smile of greeting. “Mornin’, Marshal Long!”
“Custis. And yes, it is a fine morning.”
And indeed it was. The sun was floating off the horizon, and its soft crimson glow made the Arizona desert look almost hospitable at this hour. Sunrise and sunset were the finest hours in country like this, and Longarm accepted a cup of coffee from Dan and sat cross-legged on his blankets to enjoy it.
“You know, Marshal, most people think that the desert is a hard, awful place, but it isn’t. Want to hear my theory on deserts?”
“Sure.”
“They are meant to be experienced at night.”
“In the dark?”
“It never really gets all that dark on the desert. You have starlight and moonlight and the sage get silvery so that it all shines. You must know that the critters that live out here sleep in the daytime and only come out at night.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that.”
“It’s true! The desert comes alive with goings-on at night and it just kind of buttons up in the daytime—even in winter when it can get cold.”
Longarm finished his coffee, ate a good breakfast, and then enjoyed another cup of coffee before they packed up their things and continued on to the southwest. The day was growing quite warm when Dan finally drew in on his reins and pointed to a cluster of rocks out of which spurted some mesquite.
“Over there is where the spring is and where the Lord led me to that gold.”
Longarm nodded. “Can you point out where you think Jimmy found those Spanish coins?”
“Sure,” Dan said, raising a finger. “You see that notch in the blue ridge straight on past the rocks about ten
